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QUALITIES OF MERIT IN SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS

ARTHUR CLIFTON BOYCE

Ph. B. LAFAYETTE COLLEGE. 1907

THESIS

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the

Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS
IN EDUCATION

IN

THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

1911

\^\\

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

THE GRADUATE SCHOOL

I HEREBY RECOMMEND THAT THE THESIS PREPARED UNDER MY SUPERVISION BY

A

BE ACCEPTED AS FULFILLING THIS PART OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF

e of Major Work

Head of Department

Recommendation concurred in:

Committee

on

Final Examination

197557

uiuc

Qualities of Merit in Secondary School Teachers.

There are many opinions as to what qualities a high school
teacher should possess but we "believe that no attempt has been
made to determine exactly what superintendents and principals have
in mind when they say that a certain teacher is good or that an-
other is lacking in necessary qualifications . This study is an
attempt to find out what qualities combine to form general merit
in high school teachers. What are the factors of success in high
school teaching in the opinion of those whose business it is to
judge that success? Are the necessary qualities due to natural
endowment or are they subject to training and development? This
is important in training supervisors to judge teachers and even
more in the training of teachers themselves. If we know what
qualities the best teachers in service have we know what points to
emphasize in those just beginning to teach. If we know where
teachers in service are waak we know where to start to improve
them. Upon the answer to the question as to the modif lability of
these qualities depends the value of professional training of teach
ers and the successful improvement of teachers generally.

This investigation is similar in character to one conducted
by Prof essorsRuediger and Strayer into "Qualities of Merit in
Teachers." (1). The specific qualities of merit are taken from
a list proposed by Prof. E.C. Elliott of Wisconsin as a basis of
measuring teaching efficiency. (2).

(1) Journal of Educational Psychology, May 1910, vol. 1, no. 5.

(2) Published by the Dep*t of Public Instruction, Madison, 1910.

-2

Method

Blanks were prepared having on one 3ide columns headed,

1. Rank in General Merit.

2. Sex.

3. Subjects Taught.

4. Preparation,

1. High School, College or University.

2. Professional (Normal, Teachers College,
or Educational Courses).

5. Tears of Experience.

Rank in General Merit was indicated "by capital letters A. B. C
etc. There were spaces in these columns for twenty three teach-
ers •

On the opposite side of the sheet was a list of twenty one
specific qualities of merit, with twenty three numbered columns
beside it in which to indicate the rank of any individual in any
quality.

3-

The list of single qualities follows :-

Physical -

1.

General appearance

2.

Health

3.

Voice

4.

Energy & endurance

Mo ral

-

1.

Self control

2.

Sympathy - Tact

3.

Adaptability

4.

Sense of humor

5.

Pair mindedness

Administrative -

1.

Initiative

2.

Executive capacity

3.

Cooperation

Dynamic -

1.

Intellectual capacity

2.

Instructional skill

3.

Governmental skill (discipline)

4.

Studiousness

Achievement -

1.

Success of pupils (results)

2.

Stimulation of individuals

3.

Stimulation of community

Social Spirit -

1.

Interost in life of school

2.

Interest in life of community

-4-

The following diroctions were printed on separate sheet of paper
and sent with each blank.

DIRECTIONS

1. The teachers are to be ranked first in the order of their
merit. Grades are not to be assigned. All that is wanted
is relative position.

Thus:- A will stand for the teacher best in general
teaching ability, B for the second best etc. Information as
to sex, subjects taught, preparation, and years of experience
is desired in this connection. Please indicate whether the
teacher is a normal -school graduate, a university graduate, or
both, or neither.

2. Letting the letters represent the different teachers, next
rank them according to the various single qualities of merit

of which there are twenty-one on the opposite side of the
sheet.

Thus:- Tf A is best in General Appearance put the letter
A opposito General Appearance in column I, if second, put in
column 2 and so on.

A letter of explanation and a stamped envelope for reply
also accompanied each blank.

These blanks and requests for the information were sent to
about 235 superintendents and principals. Reports were received
from 38 high schools in 14 states, most of them coming from the
Central and Middle States. Twenty seven reports were properly

-5

filled out in full or nearly so. Two reports were not filled
out according to directions. Seven reports were filled out as
to general merit and items on that side, ranking in specific
qualities being too tedious or too difficult. One report had
only 4 teachers compared and was not used. The smallest number
of teachers in any report used was 5, the highest 23, The aver-
age number for the 27 reports was 12.7.

The value of any questionnaire investigation depends on
the care with which the data are given. Notwithstanding the
obvious difficulties in ranking a large number of individuals in
each of the various qualities named, I believe it can be done and
that it has been done with a fair degree of accuracy in the cases
used in these results. It would be a remarkably uniform corps
of teachers in whom there was no difference. It is inconceivable
that they should be all the same. It depends on the skill of
the supervisor whether the difference is detected. The difficul-
ty of the problem prevented any hasty or ill-considered reply, as
those who did not have time to reply at least somewhat thought-
fully replied only in part or not at all. Again, the method of

The method of correlation used in finding the coefficient
of correlation between General Merit and the various specific
qualities and between the specific qualities themselves was that

correlation would discount

ing.

Method of Correlation.

-6-

used by K. Pearson in finding the relationship between qualities
not quantitatively measurable. The coefficient of correlation
(r) is +1.00 when there is perfect relationship; that is when
one quality is invariably accompanied in the same degree by the
other related quality, r is - 1.00 when the two qualities are
mutually exclusive. When r = .00 nothing can be known about the
relationship. All values of r, then, between .00 and 1.00 indi-
cate positive correlation and values between .00 and - 1.00 nega-
tive correlation. Thus r = .36 means that with a given amount
of one quality there will probably be .56 of the related quality.
The formula (1) used was:-
r = cos Yhc -tt
in which

a = the number of cases in which individuals are above the
median rank in both of the qualities compared.

b = the number of cases in which individuals are above in
the first quality and below in the second.

c = the number of cases in which individuals are below in
the first quality and above in the second.

d = the number of cases in which individuals are below in
both qualities.

(1) For an elaborate explanation of this method see

K. Pearson. - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society. Series A, vol. 195 pp. 1 - 47.

See also.

Whipple - Manual of Mental and Physical Tests, pp. 38 - 39.

■i

-7-

Thus taking one report comparing General Merit and General
Appearance,

Rank in Rank in

General Merit. General Appearance.

1

X

7

p

17

0

«

14

1

O
O

7

6

8

11

9

4

1C

15

11

9

12

2

13

5

14

10

Comparing the rankings in the two qualities we see that
the individual who ranked 1st in Merit ranked 7th in Appearance,
the second ranked third etc. The median is between 7 and 8.

Making a four fold classification of these rankings we
have Table I .

-8

Table I.

. Quali ty

• •

General Appearance

. Gonoral

• •

Rank . Above M.

* •

. Below M. .

. Merit

• •

.Above M. . 4

* •

3

• •

.Below M. . 3

4

Hence for this report

a = 4, b ~ 3, 0 = 3 and d = 4.
Combining all the reports on General Merit and General
Appearance we have Table II.

Table II.

.Quality . General Appearance

. . Rank . Above M.

. Below M. .

To tals.

.General .

.Above M. . 101.5

70 !

171.5 !

. Merit

.Below M. . . 61.5

! 110 !

171.5 !

Totals ! 163

! i8o !

343

a = 101.5, b = 70, c = 61.5, d = 110.
Substituting these values in the formula and solving we

have

r = .36

Leaving the specific qualities of merit to be correlated with
General Merit later let us see what relation sex, subjects taught,
preparation, and experience have with teaching efficiency.

In these classif ications where the Pearson coefficient has
not been worked out, I have divided the teachers arbitrarily into

-9-

three classes, good, medium . and poor. By Good is meant those
ranked first or second, by Poor those ranked last or next to last,
by Medium all others between these two. Because teachers are
ranked last or next to last does not necessarily mean that they
are really poor teachers. It simply means that of all the teach-
ers with whom they were compared they were least good. I felt
safe in making this classification because in any one quality it
is quite likely that one or two teachers would be prominent eith-
er for the presence or absence of that quality while it might be
harder to distinguish between the others.

Sex:-

The combined information in regard to sex and its relation
to teaching merit is given in Table III.

-10-

Tablc III.

. Item .

, Males .

Females •

. i !

Number ,

! 154

250

•

! 2 !

f of total

! 38

62

T

. o

Good - number

22 .

40

4

" - # cf total !

! 5.4 li

9.9

. 5

" - # of sex

I

' 16

:

. 6

Medium - number

! 108 .

172

. 7

M - $ of total,

! 26.7 i.

42

f :

. 8

" - io of sex ,

\ 72. i\

68.8

. 9

Poor - number

\ .24

38

! io !

11 - ^ of total ,

\ 5.9 ^ .

9.4

_C 2.

! ii !

" - ^ of sex

J5.5 # .

15.2

! 12 !

Pearson (r) ,

! .00' \

.00

The statement sometimes heard that men make better high
school teachers than women is not borne out by these results.
In fact if any difference is shown at all it is slightly in favor
of the women. Comparing items 2, 4, 7, and 10 we see that the
men bear about the same ratio to the women in all, except that
the women show a relatively larger percent of the total in the
group called good than in the others. When items 5, 8 and 11
are compared, the men again show a smaller percent of good and a
larger percent of medium and poor. It was possible for 62 or
40 ^ of the men to rank first or second and only 14 i of them did;
while out of a possible 24 $ of tbe women 16 fo ranked in the first
two classes. The Pearson coefficient, however, shows no relation

-11-

between sex and teaching efficiency.

Subjects Taught :-

Under this head the attempt has been made to find out the
distribution of good, medium and poor teachers among the various
subjects of the high school curriculum. Sufficient data were
received to compare seven of the common high school subjects.
Where a teacher taught more than one he was placed under the one
given first. The following table shows the number teaching each
subject and the number and percent of those teaching each subject
ranked in the three classes.

Table IV.

■

Good

. Medium

Poor

Subject

No.

•
■

No.

.• 7°

. No.

■

r /° .

. No

.: * :

Latin

46

A

14

. 30.4

! 28

•
■

60.8

! 4

! 8.8 .

• Mathematics

59

»

1

! 30.9

. 55

■

59.5

! 6

! 10.2 .

• History

48

•
*

7

! 14.5

! 36

•
•

75.

c

• <_/

! 10.5 !

English

85

■
*

11

! 13.2

. 57

*

68.6

!l5

! 18.2 .

Science .

_62_

■
*

8

! 12.9

. 44

•
•

70.9

!io

! 16.2 .

• Mod. Language .

57

•

4

! 10.8

! 25

•
*

67.5

! 8

! 21.7 .

.. Commercial S. .

33

•

0

• Q

75.7

. 8

. 24,3 .

The subjects are ranked in what seems to bo tho order of
their relation to efficiency as indicated by the percents of
teachers in the various classes. Mathematics and Latin are
nearly tho same in percent of good teachers but Latin was placed
first because it had a larger percent of medium and a much small-
er percent of poor teachers than Mathematics. There is a strik-
ing difference in the percents of good and poor teachers in Latin
and Mathematics and Science and Modern Languages. Why should
Latin and Mathematics stand so far ahead of the others in their
relation to general merit? This may perhaps be explained by the
fact that Latin and Mathematics have been taught for so long that
they have become well established as to method and content and
show little change from year to year while the other subjects,
especially Science are newer with their pedagogy not yet well
worked out.

I believe that preparation plays a large part in this dis-
tribution. The effect is certainly shown by the condition in
commercial teaching and the value of advanced work is strongly
suggested. Of the 33 teachers of commercial subjects not one
ranked first or second. Thirteen of them had had as high as
college or university work, 4 as high as normal and 16 had had
only high school or business college training. Only three of
the Latin teachers had had less than college or university work
and two of the three had had normal training or educational cours
es.

The training and education of the supervisors themselves
may have something to do with their judgment. That is, if their

-13-

education has been mostly along the traditional lines they would
be better able to judge the excellence of Latin and Mathematics
whereas they might not be able to see the virtues in the science
teaching if they were there.

The results indicate the necessity of better training for
Science, Modern Language, and Commercial Teachers and also a more
complete working out of the pedagogy of these subjects.

Preparation: -

The information under this head was not given fully in all
cases so that little can be determined as to what part preparation
plays in General Merit. Data from 36 reports were used giving
us 72 teachers ranked first and second. Sixty five of these had
had college or university work, 15, normal work and 24, education-
al courses in summer school or university while 3 had had no
preparation beyond high school. It is worth noticing that of
these three one had had 41 years of experience, one 32 years, and
the third 30 years.

Of the 72 teachers placed last and next to last 63 had
been in college or university and only 3 in normal school. Twenty
had had educational courses or special professional work and 10
had had neither college or normal training. Of these ten, four
had had work in business college or special training school. The
average experience of the ten was 13 years and their median 19
years .

The comparison is slightly in favor of those having pro-
fessional training for high school teaching. The effect of

-14-

meager preparation has been pointed out in connection with the
teaching of Commercial Subjects.

Experience :-

The question to which a partial answer 1b given by this
part of the data is; How important is experience in modifying
teaching efficiency. So much stress is laid on experience by
superintendents and others in judging a teacher's qualifications
for a position that it is interesting to get any information as
to its real importance ; Table V is its own best explanation. It
shows the average and median years of experience for all and for
men and women separately and also for the various groups of effic-
iency. Table V.

.Men & Women

Men

Women

. . . . .

.No . .Average .Median. No .

• •

.Average .Median.

No.

. . .

.Ave rage. Median

. . . . .

.Good. . 68.ll.Syrs.10J. vrs.20

. » «

.1025 yrs.lO.3rs .

' 40,

.116 yrs.9.5 yrs

. . . . .

.Medium. 298. 8. 7 yrs.6.1 tt .99

•8.31 w .7*1 M «

165

!s.8 M '.5.26 "

!poor ! 6s!6.39 M .4.1 " » 21

le. ■ U.5 " !

. 38

•8 " .5.5

.Total .454.8.96 n .6.17" !l40

. . <

.8.28' w .6.25" ,

,243

Is. 2 w !5.4 "

Note - The total of men and women is greater than the sum
of the men and women in the table as use was made of some reports
for the total in which sex was not specified.

No teacber was ranked first or second who had had less
than three' years of experience.

The Pearson cofficient between General Merit and Experience

-15

was .43 with a P.E. of .053.

Both the table and the Pearson coefficient indicate a very
positive correlation between Experience and teaching efficiency.
All averages and medians decrease with the rank in merit. All
medians are below their corresponding averages showing that the
majority of teachers have less than the average years of experience
This is also shown by table VI. The average for men are lower
than those for women but the medians are higher except in those
ranked poor. If we consider only the averages of all the men
and all the women we might conclude that the women stay in the
service longer but the medians would indicate the opposite. The
medians would also tend to show that the women reach maximal ef-
ficiency sooner than men.

Another interesting comparison is made in table VI in which
the years of experience are grouped by fives, except those beyond
twenty, and the distribution again made.

Table VI.

Good

Medium

.Years

► No..

No .

ft •

. No. .

f0 :

No. .

<

! 1 - 5

\ 160 \

15

9.3

! 109!

68.1,

36 1

, 22.6 .

25

18.1 ■

9G*.

69 .5 1

17 1

! 11-15

! 65*.

15

•
•

23.

42.

64.6,

8 ,

! 12.4 .

.16-20

\ 29!

6

•

20.6

! 19!

65.5,

4 ,

! 13.9 .

'21-46

. 28.

6

21.4

20*

71. 4 4

2 '

' 7.2 *

Poor

-16-

It is to be noticed that thore is a decided falling off in
numbers between the second and third groups. Seventy percent of
all are in the first two groups. The increase in efficiency is
very great from 1 to 10 years, a little less decided from 10 to 15
and efficiency as indicated by the percent of good teachers falls
off slightly from 15 to 46 but the medium group increases in that
time.

The place which experience occupies when compared with other
qualities is shown in Table VII. Altho its coefficient is quite
positive it seems not to be so important as other qualities upon
which less stress is placed.

The Correlations of the Specific Qualities of Merit with
General Merit :-

The list of qualities taken to be correlated with General
Merit is not an exhaustive one, nor is this study as a whole ex-
haustive. Many such studies and many lists of qualities will have
to be made and remade before we can know with much certainty what
constitutes General Merit in its entirety. The list is merely
suggestive. It includes points in various side of the teacher* s
character, life, work and that mysterious thing we call personality
Instead of using personality as one of the qualities we have brok-
en it up into different possible components and tried to get some-
thing more definite and more easily understood. The combined re-
suits should give us the composite opinion of asas» correspondents
as to which of these qualities are most important as exemplified
in their teachers. They will give us the qualities not as they
are in an ideal teacher but the extent to which the qualities named

-3 7-

are found in teachers actually in service.

The results obtained by combining the reports of ranking
in these qualities are given in Table VII which shows the Pearson
coefficient, the Probable Error, the number of teachers compared
for each quality and the rank of each quality in the list.

-16-

Table VII.

General Merit)

and )—

Rank

r

P.E.

Number

Physical )

• V4 W X J, V X Li J. U< U V> COX X W \J»

21

.36

.059

343

2. Health

22

.18

.062

311

3. Voice

16

.50

.059

343

4. Energy & endurance

15

• 51

Moral —

1. Self control

13

.52

.06

326

2. Sympathy - Tact

17

.45

.059

343

3. Adaptability

11

.59

.06

330

4. Sense of humor

19

.44

.059

343

5. Fair mindedness

18

• 45

t~\ o o

171 A

Administrative -

1. Initiative

9

.62

.06

330

2. Executive capacity

10

.62

.06

330

3. Cooperation

6

• CD

OCT

Dynamic -

328

1. Intellectual caDacitv

4

.71

.06

2. Instructional skill

1

.90

.059

343

5. Governmental skill (discipline)

5

.67

.059

343

4. Studiousness

7

.65

.06

o<do

Achievment -

!• Success of dud! Is (results )

2

.85

.059

343

2. Stimulation of individuals

3

.80

.06

325

3. Stimulation of community

14

• 52

• 066

Social SDirit —

1. Interest in life of school

8

.64

.062

310

2. Interest in life of community

12

.57

.064

289

$. Experience

20

.43

.053

421

I

The quality which ranks far above all others is Instruc-
tional Skill with its correlation of .90. Next in order come
Results and Stimulation of Individuals with their coefficients of
.85 and .80 respectively. These three with Intellectual Capaci-
ty .71 and Discipline .67 seem to be the single qualities deemed
most important by supervisors and are the qualities perhaps which
are most likely to be determining factors in a high school teach-
ers success, all the other qualities except General Appearance
and Health show high correlation with Teaching Efficiency. As a
group the physical qualities rank lowest and the dynamic and
achievement qualities highest. Superintendents are evidently
looking for results. It will be noted that Experience ranks third
from the last, which may indicate that Experience is not always
so important as is maintained. The correlation of the Moral qual-
ities and the Physical ones of Voice and Engery with efficiency
are high but when compared with the other qualities they seem to
be less important. The moral qualities are certainly as im-
portant as, if not more important than, administrative ability
and yet it seems to be the administrative side which is emphasized.
The teachers are decidedly weak in Health. and General Appearance.
This should not be and indicates a point or two where improvement
should be made. The low correlation of Health indicates either
that good teaching is very hard on those engaged in it or that
teaching does not attract a very strong class of people into its
ranks, - or that the disadvantages of relatively poor health may
be overcome by exertion.

-SO-

Dther Correlations :-

It would "be possible of course but of doubtful profit to
correlate every quality with every other quality but only a few
of the inter-correlations which promised interesting possibilities
are given here.

Since Instructional Skill is so important what are the
qualities upon which it depends? It is a matter of training,
experience, or native ability? To see if this could be determin-
ed, Instructional Skill has been related with some of these possi-
ble modifying factors and the results combined in Table VIII.

Table VIII.
Instructional Skill.

. Correlated with

r

_.P.E.

► Number .

. Intellectural Capacity

.65

! .06 !

[ 328 .

Studiousness

.61

!.o6 !

! 328 .

Adaptability

.53

! .06

, 330 .

. Experience

.40

.* .061.

! 322 .

If Intellectual Capacity is a quality which cannot be mod-
ified it would appear that Instructional Skill depends very large-
ly on native ability. But it is a point of great encouragement
that it depends nearly as much on Studiousness. The coefficient
of Experience is again strikingly low compared with the others
when we might expect in this case rather a high correlation.

Another much desired bit of information which might come
from intercorrelations is that of the basis of Results. That is

what the teacher is judged by largely and Results are what the

teacher himself wants. He wants to see tho succoss of his pupils
Upon what do Results depend? In order to determine this if pos-
sible, Success of Pupils was correlated with several qualities
with the following result.

Table IX.
Success of Pupils.

• Correlated with

r

. P.E. .

•

Number

. Instructional Skill

. .86

! .059 .

545_

Discipline

. .74

. .059 .

•

343

. Intellectual Capacity

. .69

. .06 .

•

328

Adaptability

. .55

. .06 .

•

330

As we might expect, the Success of the Pupils depends most
on the Instruction Skill of the teacher. Ability to keep order
is more important than Intellectual Capacity.

When we compare those results with those from Ruediger
and Stayer1 a Investigation of elementary teachers we find points
which tend to confirm the results of both and yet if tho findings
in the two cases can be taken as typical of elementary and second-
ary teachers there are differences which show some different con-
ditions in the two.

All tho coefficients of correlation in the present study
are higher than the corresponding coefficients of theirs. Thus
my highest correlation is .90, theirs .56; my lowest is .18 and
their lowest .04. This difference may be due to method of cor-
relation or to actual difference between the relation of those

-22-

qualitioa bo Merit in high school and olomontary teachors, tho
such a groat difference is unlikely.

The quality which had highest correlation with teaching
efficiency in elementary teachers was Discipline, wi th Instruc-
tional Skill and Initiative ranking second and third. The coef-
ficients of Instructional Skill and Discipline were respectively
•56 and ,54 in their study and .90 and .67 in the present invest-
igation, showing tho much groater relative importance of Disci-
pline in the grades. Health and appearance rankod lowest with
elementary teachers as they did with high school teachers.

In the matter of Experience there are some differences
but the 'results tend to the same conclusion namely that Exper-
ience is an important factor in modifying teaching ability. No
elementary teacher ranked first or second with less than five
years of experience . Among high school teachers 3 years was
the minimum for good teacheis. The average experience of ele-
mentary teachers for tho first and second classes was 13 years
and for the last two classes 8.5 years. The average experience
of high school teachers for these corresponding groups was 11.8
years and 6.39 years respectively. The averages for the totals
were 10 years for grade teachors and 8.96 years for those in
high school. All of which would seem to show that elementary
teachers remain in the profession longer than high school teach-
ers. This is shown also by tho fact that of the elementary
teachers 25. fo had taught less than 5 years and 26 fo more than
14 years while of the high school teachers 39 fo had taught 5
years or less and only 13.9 fo more than 15 years.

-23-

Little direct comparison can be made as to preparation.
It is noticed howevor that collego graduates are predominantly
the best high school teachers but are not particularly successful
in the grades.

In conclusion I wish to acknowledge my very groat in-
debtedness to the superintendents and principals who have furnish
ed the original data for the results given here. It was no
small task which was asked of them and many such requests added
to their already heavy work makes their replies all the more to
be appreciated. It is only from those nearest the actual teach-
ing work that such information can be obtained and it is to be
hoped that they are contributing something which may in the end
ease the burden placed on them.

Summary : -

1. Among the teachers compared, sex had little or no effect on
teaching efficiency, except that women seem to have a slight
advantage among the teachers whose qualities of merit were
studied.

2. The best teachers are found in the oldest established subjects

3. Advanced work in College or University and Professional train-
ing are important factors in succossful high school teaching.

4. Experience has an important place in modifying teaching ef-
ficiency but does not seem to be. as important as is sometimes
thought .

5. Ins timet ional Skill, Results, Stimulation of Individuals,
Intellectual Capacity, and Discipline rank highest among the
specific qualities of merit.